Renewable Energy – Following the Money
For those interested in tracking the progress I’m making in writing my third book, here is the title: Renewable Energy – Following the Money.
The project is based on the notion that the migration from fossil fuels will happen precisely when it becomes profitable. Therefore, understanding the trajectory by which renewables gradually displace their dirty counterparts means wrapping our wits around each of the main economic components: subsidies and incentives, taxes and disincentives, lobbying and campaign finance reform, improving efficiencies, cost reduction associated with to scale and technological breakthroughs, addressing demand with conservation and efficiency, and the development of ancillary solutions like energy storage, smart-grid, electric transportation, etc.
The table on contents is as follows:
- Introduction
- Interview with Dennis McGinn—American Council on Renewable Energy
- Interview with Brian Wynne—Electric Drive Transportation Association
- Interview with Dr. Jim Boyden—Physicist
- Interview with Tom Konrad, Ph.D. —Alternative Energy Stocks
- Interview with Jerry Taylor—CATO Institute
- Interview with Stephen Lacey—Climate Progress
- Interview with Jeff Siegel—Green Chip Stocks
- Interview with Rajendra K. Pachauri, Ph.D. — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- Short Essays on the Subject
- Conclusion
Stock analysts- you might try Clint Wheelock at Pike Research. Oh, yeah, and there’s that guy at Alt Energy Stocks- what’s his name again?
You should also consider a chapter about green money managers. I guess the Alt Energy guy might fit better there, if you had that chapter. He should also be able to introduce you to several such. As well as analysts and individual investors.
Darn! If I could only remember his name!
Ha! That’s hilarious. I will add you (and Clint) to the list. The only reason I didn’t think of you is that you’re featured in the current book (Is Renewable Really Doable), but, come to think of it, there is no reason to to have you in both.
Check out the German village of Wildpoldsried:
http://inhabitat.com/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs/wildpoldsried-germany
— Stephen
Hi Craig,
Follow suggestions on the subjects:
#4-Eileen M. O’Rourke from http://www.oteci.com;
#4-Jeremy P. Feakins from http://www.otecorporation.com;
#4-Haruo Uehara from http://www.otec.ws;
#7-Mr. Roland, roland.risser@ee.doe.gov;
#15-O&G business, Lockheed Martin.
Regards,
Vicente Fachina
Rio
Thanks very much! I notice you favor OTEC. Do you think it can be cost effective?
Will you be visiting Feldheim, Germany?
All eyes on German renewable energy efforts
Posted: Dec 29, 2011 3:57 AM EST
Updated: Dec 29, 2011 7:08 PM EST
By MELISSA EDDY
Associated Press
FELDHEIM, Germany (AP) – This tiny village in a wind-swept corner of eastern Germany seems an unlikely place for a revolution.
Yet environmentalists, experts and politicians from El Salvador to Japan to South Africa have flocked here in the past year to learn how Feldheim, with just 145 people, is already putting into practice Germany’s vision of a future powered entirely by renewable energy.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government passed legislation in June setting the country on course to generate a third of its power through renewable sources – such as wind, solar, geothermal and bioenergy – within a decade, reaching 80 percent by 2050, while creating jobs, increasing energy security and reducing harmful emissions.
The goals are among the world’s most ambitious, and expensive, and other industrialized nations from the U.S. to Japan are watching to see whether transforming into a nation powered by renewable energy sources can really work.
“Germany can’t afford to fail, because the whole world is looking at the German model and asking, can Germany move us to new business models, new infrastructure?” said Jeremy Rifkin, a U.S. economist who has advised the European Union and Merkel.
In June, the nation passed the 20 percent mark for drawing electric power from a mix of wind, solar and other renewables. That compares with about 9 percent in the United States or Japan – both of which rely heavily on hydroelectric power, a source that has long been used.
Expanding renewables depends on the right mix of resources, as well as government subsidies and investment incentive – and a willingness by taxpayers to shoulder their share of the burden. Germans currently pay a 3.5 euro cent per kilowatt-hour tax, roughly €157 ($205) per year for a typical family of four, to support research and investment in and subsidize the production and consumption of energy from renewable sources.
That allows for homeowners who install solar panels on their rooftops, or communities like Feldheim that build their own biogas plants, to be paid above-market prices for selling back to the grid, to ensure that their investment at least breaks even.
Critics, like the Institute for Energy Research, based in Washington, D.C., maintain such tariffs put an unfair burden of expanding renewables squarely on the taxpayer. At the same time, to make renewable energy work on the larger scale, Germany will have to pour billions into infrastructure, including updating its grid.
Key to success of the transformation will be getting the nation’s powerful industries on board, to drive innovation in technology and create jobs. According to the Environment Ministry, overall investment in renewable energy production equipment more than doubled to €29.4 billion ($38.44 billion) in 2011. Solid growth in the sector is projected through the next decade.
Some 370,000 people in Germany now have jobs in the renewable sector, more than double the number in 2004, a point used as proof that tax payers’ investment is paying off.
Feldheim has zero unemployment compared with roughly 30 percent in other villages in the economically depressed state of Brandenburg, which views investments in renewables as a ticket for a brighter future. Most residents work in the plant that produces biogas – fuel made by the breakdown of organic material such as plants or food waste – or maintain the wind and solar parks that provide the village’s electricity.
“The energy revolution is already taking place right here,” says Werner Frohwitter, spokesman for the Energiequelle company that helped set up and run Feldheim’s energy concept.
But it’s not only in the countryside. Earlier this month in Berlin, officials unveiled a prototype of a self-sustaining, energy-efficient home, built from recycled materials and complete with electric vehicles that can be charged in its garage.
The aim of the prototype home is to produce twice as much energy as is used by a family of four – chosen from a willing pool of volunteers who will be selected to live in the home for 15 months – through a combination of solar photovoltaics and energy management technology, in order to show the technology already exists to allow people to be energy self-sufficient.
“We want to show people that already today it is possible to live completely from renewable energy,” said German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer as the project, dubbed “Efficiency House Plus,” was unveiled. The house is part of a wider €1.2 million ($1.57 million) project investing in energy-efficient buildings.
“The Efficiency House Plus will set standards that can be adopted by the majority in the short term,” Ramsauer told The Associated Press. “The basic principle is that the house produces more energy than needed to live. The extra energy is then used to charge electric-powered cars and bicycles or sold back to the public grid.”
Germany’s four leading car makers are also participating in the project with BMW AG, Daimler AG, Volkswagen AG and Opel, which is part of Buick’s parent company, General Motors Co., each making an E-car for use by in the home.
Such strong cooperation between Germany’s industrial sector, coupled with a political landscape that emphasizes stability and a heightened public ecological sensibility, makes Germany fertile ground to lead the way in the transformation from a post-carbon economy to one run on renewable energy.
“Germany has the most robust industrial economy per capita. When you talk about industrial revolution, that’s Germany. It’s German technology, it’s German IT, it’s German commutation,” said Rifkin, who outlines what he calls the “The Third Industrial Revolution,” in a newly released book of the same title that explains how the economies in the future could swap fossil fuels for renewable energies and still maintain growth.
Robert Pottmann, an asset manager with Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest reinsurers, says the company seeks to invest about €2.5 billion ($3.27 billion) in the next few years in renewable energy assets such as “wind farms, solar projects or maybe new electricity grids.”
Alan Simpson, an independent energy and climate adviser from Britain who visited Feldheim as part of a wider tour of Germany last month to see what the renewable revolution looks like up close said it was inspiring to view what is being accomplished on the ground.
“It’s great to think about Germany delivering on everything that we are being told in Great Britain is impossible,” Simpson said.
Amid the excitement, there is also an awareness of the real need for the German experiment to succeed.
I’ll definitely try to check that out. You make some excellent points here. Thanks.
Craig Best wishes for your trip. Please review the http://www.altmerge.com website and carry on your trip the reality that fertilizer [ NH40H, ammonia liquor ] can be made lo cally and inexpensively and easily without hydrocarbon by the discovery of fixing nitrogen in a pulse jet powered by nitrogen. Each combustion produces ammonia or ammonium nitrate if more oxygen is added to ambient air containing water vapor. It is basically using combustion for production rather than propulsion and may be of special interest in Germany where the pulse jet was invented. This device and process will enable a hydrogen energy regime by providing a practical end use for stranded solar and wind energy. Check out the website and let me know if your interested. Travel safely. Bruce H. Peters M. D.
Bruce: I’m sure you’re aware of the Ammonia Fuel Network. What’s your take on what they’re doing?
In Europe and Canada there are hundreds of examples of seasonal heat storage systems being used for buildings ranging from single homes to installations that are used for heating and cooling millions of square feet. A general outline is provided in http://kanata-forum.ca/mid-size.pdf . We could accomplish more by stopping the immense waste of energy than by continuing the frantic search for yet more sources of energy to waste.
I have ideas on Green Energy, but need help with financing Proto-types.
Please post some of your ideas.
Hello, Craig:
Would you like to check out Masdar and Masdar City in Abu Dhabi??
Regards,
Awais
Well, my focus is really on people, vs. places. Can you introduce me to some influential people?
I know people at Masdar, but contact details are purely private and not for this blog. If you agree then please send me an e-mail.
Craig,
I forwarded the email about your european visit to my network.
They’ll get in touch with you if they think they can be helpful or if there’s a mutual benefit.
Regards,
Martin van Wunnik
Belgium
ARSIMA Projects
Graig, I am sure that Dr Wolfgang Gohl, would prove a very valuable contact.
He can be reached at:- wolfgang.gohl@gmx.de.
Good Luck
Craig, GT was originally GT Energy based in London. Much of our work was focused in the 1999 – 2004 time frame. This was a key time for most low carbon policies in the Euro Zone. (FIT, ROCs, CCL, UK ETS > EU ETS ec.) Be glad to give you a background. Most of these green commodity markets have driven low carbon development (under the KP, EU Directive (EU ETS) and CDM).
Andrew
Happy New Year Craig,
On your visit to Europe, have you thought of the United Kingdom, mainly the Isle of Man, home of the TT races and of the new electric bike racing, anyway, it has a lot of Companies that do Green,i myself run the islands largest recycling company, i don’t talk to the Manx Government due to issues of hot air, that comes from them, and they also have big egos(heads) there website is http://www.gov.im mine is http://www.askbuck.com so if you need more info i can try and get it for you. but just to be clear i suport the Isle Of Man 100%.
Hello Craig,
thanks for contacting me with your e-mail Dec. 31. I tried to repsond directly but the e-mail bounced back due to a full mailbox.
What I wrote is this about your travelling plans:
I know so many people in Renewables in Europe it is hard to tell which of them is the right contact for you.
I have been in the industry for many years now and I have many contacts.
Are you looking for specific industry contacts (wind, solar, biomass) or more general or political views ?
Berlin is the right place to be as most lobbying offices are right where the German government is and you know that we started with our FIT in the early 90ies. Germany is still one of the biggest markets for solar and wind development though other countries are catching up.
I also attached a list of my presentations and publications for your information, but this has to be resent at a later stage.
Please revert and kind regards and a Happy New Year
Dirk
Hi Craig
I really enjoy reading your articles. I started reading about molten salts a week ago and it is really interesting! I am not a scientist so whenever I read something I look for diagrams or videos on YouTube to help me understand further.
I can not wait to read your new book!
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